Library Dreams

Rather recently I finished a long-term reading project which I had started in August.  While I was visiting Leah, as Lazarus was napping one day, I browsed her book shelves, and pulled down a title of which appealed to me greatly.  As I read, I took detailed notes on my phone (not recommended - the "keyboard" is too tiny to spell anything properly, and it's a pain to hold the paperback open with one hand while keeping the smartphone screen from flipping to horizontal...)  When I eventually downloaded the notes onto my computer, it was nine full screens of type!  The title of the book is Grace-Based Parenting, written by Tim Kimmel.  His premise is that our understanding of how God treats us as His children is ultimately going to play out in how we treat our children.  Grace, I know, is one of our most central Christian theological concepts, yet I remain somewhat confused as to what it means.  I hoped, among other things, that this book would give me clarity.  Although I feel I can't define the complexity and richness of grace well (I can spout off a standard quick definition, of course), I did feel that I gained a better understanding through some of the stories in the book.  However it wasn't the stories I took notes on, but the more academic stuff.  I will just share a very few things from my notes.

This passage struck me strongly:

"Because we are made in God's image, we have built into our makeup an infinite capacity for love.  Loving your child and even doing things to show your love do not translate into a secure love.
Secure love is a steady and sure love that is written on the hard drive of children's souls. It's a complete love that they default to when their hearts are under attack. It's the kind of love that children can confidently carry with them into the future. "

I was stunned and humbled by a quote from author Dan Allender, which Kimmel shared in the later part of his book:

Honesty is the commitment to see reality as it is, without conscious distortions, minimization, or spiritualization.  Honesty begins by admitting we are deceived, and that we would rather construct a false world than face the bright, searing light of truth.  An honest person acknowledges his fondness for vague, half-truths that neither require change nor rip away the presumption of self-sufficiency.

Why must we admit what is true?  Because dishonesty, or living in denial, is actually an attempt to dethrone God.  it is an attempt to become as God with the power to construct the world and reality according to our desire.  A person committed to denying hard truths must construct an alternate world and, then, like Atlas, keep it spinning on her own power.  The creation of a false world is really an attempt to shut God out of our world.  It's much like the child who says, "Unless you play by my rules, I'll take my ball and bat and go home."  God does not play by our rules nor resolve our wound and ache as we desire; therefore, we leave God's world and create one that is more palatable to our taste, even if it robs us of life and love.

These two sentences late in the book mystified me and provoked me to deep thought:

"The graceless home requires kids to be good and gets angry and punishes them when they are bad. The grace-based home assumes kids will struggle with sin and helps them learn how to tap into God's power to help them get stronger."

The book speaks very specifically to children's needs and to parents' responsibilities, but it does not tell you HOW to do things.  That's part of its beauty - it recognizes every child is different, every parent is different, every family is different.  Instead the author encourages the reader to look at our circumstances through the eyes of principle, while being prayerfully creative about how to accomplish what God wants for us.

So... having finally finished this book (and its somewhat irritatingly arduous note-taking), it was time to start another book, and I had two waiting for me.... 

We have a little neighborhood free library three blocks from us, and in the year we've lived here I've left two or three books in the small, glass-front, peak-roofed box for neighbors, and picked up three for myself.

The first one I took was The Plague and I by Betty McDonald.  I spied it in the box in March and pulled it out.  I'd heard of the book from my mother-in-law but knew nothing about it.  Turns out this is the same Betty McDonald of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle fame, and Plague is one of her autobiographical works.  I could hear the voice of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle as I read about her experiences in a tuberculosis sanitarium, and was delighted to discover that the author was a resident of Seattle in the 1940s when she wrote Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.  As my sister gave Anne her first two Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books shortly thereafter in April, I have a new appreciation for the setting and surroundings of the author as I read these truly delightful stories to my five-year-old.  Plague was a real page-turner for me, although maybe I am easily delighted when it comes to compelling stories....

Back to the current November, I had the second book I'd pulled from the free library waiting for me, and it was A Wrinkle in Time, which has risen to new heights in popularity due to the fairly recent movie (which I have not seen and am not in the market to see).  I had read Wrinkle in childhood on the recommendation of my close friend Laura, and I don't think I appreciated it as much as she did.  Upon rereading it last weekend while nursing a tired baby (I was surprised how much of the plot and details I hadn't remembered), I definitely understood it better.  Now I get that it is a theological exploration of the battle between Good and Evil.  However, it still stretched my mind in terms of the science-fiction aspect of the fantasy, perhaps a bit beyond where my mind wanted to go.  Science fiction interested me a little as a child, but it has never been my favorite genre, and has since fallen in favor with myself.  For that reason, I will always prefer Narnia or the Ring when it comes to theology in literature.  However, I enjoyed it enough that I would like to continue the series.

The third book from the free library I'd been considering taking for some months, but had never gotten up the nerve.  Most of the books in the box are sort of chick-lit gossip stuff, which I don't have the time or the will to read.  The book in question is a semi-autobiographical novel by Willa Cather, which I knew was definitely NOT in that category, but beyond knowing she was a well-regarded author from a long time ago, I had nothing to go on.  However, in a recent Strings magazine, which I usually skim at best, I enjoyed an article on David Hochstein, written in honor of the 100th anniversary of his death.  He was a violin prodigy from Rochester who was killed in WWI, and his friends organized a community music school in honor of him.  That's where I taught for the first four years of our marriage.  In the article, I learned that Hochstein was acquainted with Cather, and there were quotes from her writing which made me want to read her work.   Finally I took the book from behind the latched door, and now I've started reading it.  The writing is so rich and vivid, descriptive and colorful.  The plot runs in refreshingly human time, and I am so intrigued by the pace of life a century or more ago in a small town in the Colorado desert.  My mom always said when I was a child, that I was born in the wrong century on account of my fascination with "the olden days."  As an adult, I have a more mature view on that statement, but it is still true that I seem to see and do things differently than a lot of my peers.  In reading this novel, I am temporarily in love with and nostalgic for a time I never lived in - with an incredibly different pace of life and an entirely different set of expectations which I almost can't fathom.  I appreciate the author's grittiness and also how her more timely perception of the "olden days" were both more and less sexist and proper than I had imagined.  I am also finding it to be a page-turner.

 

Steely Toad

*growly voice* Hi.  My name's Toad.  Steely Toad.  Put 'er up there.


My mom was on FIRE this past week when she came to help us out.   One of her props was this fantastic toad puppet she found at Whole Earth Provision Company.  Toad and Anne were fast friends and held many conversations.  They met for the first time the day of my mom's arrival.  Rather than anyone telling Anne it was practice time, Toad just started asking questions about the cello until Anne was compelled to get out her instrument to demonstrate things for Toad.  The whole practice unfolded in a slow and conversational manner.  And Toad, it turns out, is horribly picky about intonation, but Anne didn't mind and managed to appease his poor wounded ears with more attention to her left fingers.  Though the practice took a while, there was no fighting, and lots of laughing.  I had the priviledge of sitting and watching the whole thing as an observer, and it was absolutely brilliant.  I wish I could have documented the entire session.

Several years ago I read How to Talk so Kids Will Listen, and How to Listen so Kids Will Talk, and I ended up publishing a little article in the American Suzuki Journal on using the concepts from the book in my violin teaching.  My mom had recently mentioned to me that she'd been reading this book...

...and it was obvious that the puppet concept came from it.  Mom lamented that they didn't have this book when we were little and her life would have been so much easier if she'd been able to have this information back then.  Anyway, I'm planning to read this VERY SOON.  I have finished two books recently and started a third.  All of which shall be the subject of the next blog.

Anne has been texting Toad since his return flight to Texas...

Wiggle Music

Anne's cello practice these days is fueled by rockstar cellists.  And it also is fueling happy bath times for my two big kids as well as dance parties during the long, dark evenings.  Lazarus calls it "wiggle".  We have a whole playlist of the 2Cellos going on our youtube.  At this rate, Lazarus will have to learn cello as well so they can play this stuff together...

Also popular is an old school pal of the parents', Mike Block...

Amazing Musicians

What did you do on your second-to-last day off for your new baby?  This morning at 9:00 I drove Laurel and Nutmeg and Feathers to the vet and wrangled us all inside.  Afterward I ran a short errand which involved hauling Laurel's seat back and forth.  We came home for an hour and dropped off the cats.  After I listened to my sister manage Anne's cello practice (I want to put her on our business payroll!) I took all three kids to drop Anne off at school.  This involves a 1/4 mile hike each way in the hills carrying both the newborn and the two-year-old.  I came home and handed Lazarus off to Jared for their run, and got right back in the car with Black Bean.  Headed to the vet with the third cat and the baby again.  I made it home just in time to let one of my students who was pulling up know  that there was no lesson today.  After a little while stabilizing Lazarus post-nap, off we went to get Anne at school.  Same hike/carry story as above.  Drove down the hill to the store for cat food and litter.  And finally home around 5:15 for the evening.  Four hours in the car wrangling lots of small dependents.  Maybe not the best scheduling choice of my life...

But I promised amazing musicians.  In the last couple years we have heard three young female conductors leading the Seattle Symphony.  I wrote about the first some time ago.  The other two we have seen this year - Karina Canellakis and Ruth Reinhardt.  Both of these women were easily some of the best conductors we have ever heard.  They brought out inner structures in the music and found the depth of the composers' emotions, while creating great clarity in voicing and rhythmic flow.  It occurs to me that since conducting has been such a male dominated field for so long, for women to make it to the top, they must be better than good - truly stunning, in fact.  I'd love to hear them again any day.

This past weekend we witnessed a violinist whom I'd never heard of before.  Alina Ibragimova played the dark and complex Second Concerto of Shostakovich.  The sounds she created with her bow from the first note were rich, creative, and compelling.  She used such a palate of articulations to make the music speak.  She interacted with the orchestra like a chamber musician.  Her intonation was pure and piercing, and her choice to play some fifths perfectly!!!! in tune without vibrato was haunting.  She captured the thoughts and feelings of a composer who experienced hell on earth and kept going with aplomb.  She was possibly the most technically flawless violinist I have ever heard in my life, but it was all in service to communicating an incredible and abstract story.

Makes you wonder what you're doing with your life, but moreso it's a chance to truly appreciate the intersection of intelligence, emotion, education, love, dedication, and hard work.

Lots of Feelings

I spent some time in the last couple of days enjoying feeling sad...

• Sad that I am at the end of my maternity leave - the time when I can sit on the couch and stare out the window at the trees and the wind and the sky with a tiny baby on my lap - and not feel guilty about it
• Sad that my tiny new baby is getting bigger and less new.  There is so much wonderful anticipation of newness, and I don't like watching the newness ebb away.
• Sad that it is getting darker earlier and earlier...  (Of course, that will get dramatically worse this weekend with the time change.)
• Sad for the baby we lost three years ago
• Sad that I didn't get to watch my kids on their first trick-or-treating adventure (I thought it best to stay home with my sleeping baby in the front pack to answer the door and visit with all the other trick-or-treaters.)
• Sad that my dad's visit week has zipped by so quickly
• Sad that October is already over

And also I spent some time in the last couple of days enjoying feeling grateful...

• Grateful that I have three wonderful, healthy children.
• Grateful that I have so much wonderful family help.
• Grateful that my dad fixed two of our light fixtures and the lamp my great-grandfather made.
• Grateful that I can watch the seasons go by out my window.
• Grateful that the trees are such beautiful colors.
• Grateful that we have our own beautiful little home.
• Grateful that Jared is home all the time with us, and he is so handy with the cooking and mopping and cat box cleaning.

It is November, and I was able to find our Thanksgiving tree in the garage on my first try yesterday.  This year I mounted it on the sheetrock next to our fireplace - very few of our walls have standard sheetrock, so mounting my stuff is an interesting conundrum.